


the charge of the soul

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [349]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Amras is a good egg, Gen, Gold Rush AU, Interlude, Mithrim, and how forgiveness works, both trying to understand their place in the world, so is Mollie, title from Walt Whitman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29394867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “You’re not angry at Maglor?”“Not my right,” she says. “And no. I understand. He hates himself for…for not doing the impossible good.”(Wise or not, Amras has told her everything.)
Relationships: Amras & Maedhros | Maitimo, Amras & Maglor | Makalaurë, Amras (Tolkien) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [349]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	the charge of the soul

“That’s the whole of it,” Amras says, turning away so that he can swipe his sleeve across his cheek without calling too much attention to his watering eyes.

Not that Mollie would judge him.

“Tisn’t fair,” she tells him, shaking her head emphatically. “He did what he could to stop that traitor Ulfang. Did what he could to keep more traitors out after that, when you and I both know he wasn’t himself. There’s those among us as was _real_ spies. We’re the one with guilty hearts, Amras.”

“You were in a hard spot,” Amras says. He doesn’t feel much like smiling, but he offers one to Mollie, to show her that he means what he says. She is hardier than she was; happier, even, than she was. But Amras doesn’t know how far she still is from happiness itself.

Still waters, open skies, no death trapped under them: peace like that isn’t a thing that one easily reclaims, after so much suffering. He hasn’t known happiness since Formenos. He lost it when he was still too young to know he had.

Wiser now, he settles for seeking…relief. He ventures, “You’re not angry at Maglor?”

“Not my right,” she says. “And no. I understand. He hates himself for…for not doing the impossible good.”

(Wise or not, Amras has told her everything.)

“Thanks,” he says, taking the relief he hoped for like a draught of cool water. “Perhaps _I_ should be angry, but I’m not. Not at him. He’s my godfather,” he adds, lamely, as if that has anything to do with it. “And it was—it’s all an awful tangle. Celegorm was violent, and Maitimo—”

(He can’t speak of Maitimo, not as he was in that moment. He’ll tell Mollie everything but that.)

“Never you mind that,” Mollie says. “Spring’s coming, Amras. Good things always happen in the spring.”

“Is that so?”

She sighs and shakes her head again. “No, I’m afraid not.”

They laugh a little together, haymow-soft. Then Amras says, “I don’t want—” and nothing more. He has to hold his tongue just long enough to keep the truth from running free, from ruining him. More carefully, he says, “I don’t want any of my brothers to die.”

_Any more. I don’t want any more of my brothers to die._

Her dark eyes are berry-glistening, _sorry_ for him. It was a pride and a folly, that bite of his tongue, as much as it was grief. He didn’t need to lie to Mollie. She is one of the people who knows.

“I’d best be getting back,” she says, reaching out to pat his hand. “Beren showed me how to make moccasins, and I promised to show Estrela. The little boy keeps losing his.”

“Frog?” Amras asks.

“That can’t really be his name,” she murmurs.

Amras shrugs. “We all go by something.” He thinks, not for the first time, that _she_ might have once had another name, too. Just another thing that died with happiness. But her words, her imminent departure, bring more relief as well. They are in the stable, after all. There was a time that she would have been loath to leave it. Now, her home is the fort.

If only it were his.

His, and all his brothers’.


End file.
